1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a system for delivering electronic data by a server according to an access from a client, and more particularly to a method, apparatus and program storage device for providing electronic data delivery
2. Description of Related Art
Many transactions today involve the delivery of electronic data. Such electronic data may include an electronic ticket or other digital content such as music, videos, official personal resident information, and the like. Using ticketing as an example, tickets are used to control admission to a wide variety of events such as concerts, plays, sports contests, and other performances. Attending an event generally requires purchasing a ticket in advance. Tickets are traditionally provided by the venue hosting the event and are sold at the venue's box office. Tickets are also available through ticket distributors, in coordination with the hosting venue and the event promoter. Aside from the venue box office, tickets are also available through ticket outlets, ticket brokers, telephone sales, remote ticket printing applications, ticket kiosks and Internet web sites. Thus, ticket sales are no longer strictly a mechanical function. Ticketing systems have evolved to make use of computer systems in various phases of the ticket generation, issuance and validation processes.
One method for presenting tickets for sales is the consignment method. Tickets may be sold on a consignment basis by use of agents and the like. For example, in the soccer's World Cup, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) allocates tickets to ticket handlers in other countries through sole agents, e.g., wholesalers. Accordingly, people who want to purchase the tickets acquire the tickets from the ticket handlers in those countries. Depending on circumstances, the agent further sets an agent of its own, and thus a mode of sales in which a form of consignment is hierarchized into a several stages, such as a subsidiary agent and a sub-subsidiary agent, may be adopted. However, by use of such a sales method, allocation of tickets cannot be flexibly changed if a predetermined agent has too many tickets or runs out of tickets. Thus, sales efficiency is poor.
In recent years, along with development of information processing technologies by computers, efficient ticket sales have been achieved by use of digitized tickets, e.g., electronic tickets. The electronic tickets are sold in a system formed by installing servers in a wholesaler, each agent and an end dealer, respectively, and communicating those servers in a hierarchical fashion via a network, e.g., via a tree structure. Thus, a wholesaler corresponding to a root node can perform consolidated management of sales situations of all the tickets. Such examples may be found in Patent Documents: Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2002-197221 and Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2001-297242. The consolidated management of the sales situations of the tickets makes it possible to avoid a situation where a specific agent has too many tickets or runs out of tickets.
In such a tree structure, a person who wants to buy a ticket operates a client terminal to issue a ticket purchase request. Thereafter, this request is transmitted up a branch to a server of a wholesaler. The server of the wholesaler issues a ticket in response to the request and returns a response, which is issued back down the path through which the ticket purchase request is transmitted. Subsequently, procedures such as payment are performed by the client terminal. Thus, the ticket is sold to the person who wants to buy the ticket.
As described above, management of sales of an electronic ticket (hereinafter simply described as a ticket) by a network system makes it possible for a wholesaler to perform consolidated management of sales situations of all tickets even if the ticket is sold by use of a number of agents and dealers. Thus, it is possible to avoid a situation where a specific agent has too many tickets or runs out of tickets. However, in the case of a network system in which servers are hierarchically coupled simply from the wholesaler to an end dealer according to a form of a consignment contract for ticket sales, there is a problem that a load on a server positioned in a lower level is increased.
Specifically, in the system described above, all the servers existing on a path from a client terminal, by which a ticket purchase request is issued, to a top server cannot finish a transaction until the request issued reaches the top server and is processed. Thus, the lower the server is positioned, the longer it takes to finish the transaction. Accordingly, the load of the server is increased. This technical problem concerning issuance of the electronic ticket similarly exists in delivery of various electronic data (digital contents, for example, music, videos, official personal resident information, and the like).
As a measure to reduce a load on the lower level server, it is considered to couple servers of all agents directly to a server of a wholesaler regardless of a form of each agent in a contract (a subsidiary agent, a sub-subsidiary agent and the like). However, in such a system, the servers of all the agents are managed by the server of the wholesaler. Thus, the agent has to obtain agreement from the wholesaler for server communication each time the agent increases or reduces its own subsidiary agents, which is complicated. Moreover, each of the agents has to provide information concerning its own subsidiary agent to the wholesaler or a high-level agent. The above situation may not be favorable depending on a form of an agent contract.
It can be seen that there is a need for a system for delivering electronic data by a plurality of agent servers under consolidated management by a wholesale server, and a method of delivering the electronic data.